In Super Smash Bros, Director Masahiro Sakurai stripped the fighting
game genre of its finger-tangling combos and built a new style from the
core sensation he enjoyed the most: the dynamic "ad lib" nature of the
fights. It was arguably the Nintendo 64's best game. In Kirby Air Ride,
Sakurai boiled down the racing game to drifting and acceleration, then
layered that core with Kirby flair and garish extras. It wasn't exactly
the next Smash Bros.

Now, Sakurai's "disassembly and reassembly" approach takes on the
shooter in Kid Icarus: Uprising. The father of Kirby and Smash Bros has transformed a quirky NES action platformer into half corridor
shooter and half third-person shooter. It's no Smash success, but
it's far from Air Ride's mediocre curiosity as well.

Earlier this month, I played through the original Kid Icarus
for the first time. It's a golden-age Nintendo oddity with a novel
mishmash of action and RPG (novel in 1986, anyway) that provides more
frustration than fun. It's okay, I guess.

But through the years, enough fans yearned for a revival of Kid Icarus
that an online petition could always be found on any sizable video game
forum. Unfortunately for these die-hards, Nintendo never gives its fans
exactly what they want: it instead creates something new that resembles fan demands. Besides, Kid Icarus was a strange game. The only aspect of it I could see living on was the oddball Cupid Versus Eggplants theme.

Apparently Nintendo saw that too, because the new Kid Icarus: Uprising celebrates its strange heritage in a game style closer to Star Fox than a return to the original's platforming-action formula. Lifetime Kid Icarus fans are no doubt disappointed, but I couldn't be happier: the rail-shooting half of Uprising bears a strong resemblance to my 2010 Game of the Year, Sin & Punishment Star Successor, and the on-foot arena melees look no less enjoyable. Could Kid Icarus: Uprising be the 3DS's first worthy purchase of 2012?

Like scampering down the stairs on Christmas morning, the excited search for a steady video feed before E3 conferences is filled with anticipation. The annual summer happening is one of the few times on the gaming industry's calendar when we can look forward to some surprise delights from the many publishers playing the role of Santa Claus in business suits. Simply put, it's the industry's biggest event in the year.

As such, the editors of The First Hour tried to guess what unexpected pleasures would manifest at the event. Some were sure bets, like Microsoft showing off Halo: Reach. Others were more risky, like F-Zero hitting the 3DS at launch. And some were planted firmly outside the realm of possibility, with Shenmue 3 topping that list as always.

When all was said and done, The First Hour hit a few out of the park...but mostly struck out.

The question at the beginning of E3 always seems to be, "Who's going to
win this year?" The gaming community eagerly watches the big press
conferences for showstopping announcements and game demonstrations,
looking to see which company will have the edge for the next twelve
months. E3 2010 featured five big press conferences in its first two
days: Microsoft, EA, and Ubisoft on Monday, and Nintendo and Sony on
Tuesday. So much has happened in the past 48 hours that I think it's
important to take a moment and recap each company's showing. I've
definitely missed a few announcements and details in this
quick-and-dirty summary, but I think I hit all the major points.